LiteON SOHW-832S Dual DVD±RW Recorder -
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LiteOn,
as a leading optical storage manufacturer, announced at the end of April, a
new 8X DUAL burner, the "SOHW-832S". The main difference
with the presently available SOHW-812S series was the adoption
of Double Layer (DVD+R DL)
recording.

Our main interest is to see how the new LiteON drive compared with the previous
812S series and most importantly, if and how DL writing works. Another important
issue would be writing quality and the various subtests where the LiteOn 812S
performed very well. So, let's get cracking!

- New Features

The most important new feature of the SOHW-832S is the ability to read/write
Double Layer DVD+R media.

The
Double Layer DVD+R system uses two thin embedded organic dye films for data
storage separated by a spacer layer. Heating with a focused
laser beam irreversibly modifies the physical and chemical structure of each
layer such that the modified areas have different optical properties to those
of their unmodified surroundings. This causes a variation in reflectivity as
the disc rotates to provide a read-out signal as with commercially pressed read-only
discs. Below is a picture showing the structure of a DVD+R DL media.

For more information about DVD+R DL technology, you can visit the DVD+RW
Alliance website or
Philips Research website.

The specs don't indicate whether the drive supports Mount
Rainier for either of CD or DVD formats, but we will check this later. The
drive also uses the RPC II region control, allowing a user to change the drive's
region
at most 5 times, which however can easily be bypassed with various utilities.

Below are the drive's main specs as given by NeroInfoTool and DVDInfoPro:

Lastly, let's see what additional information KProbe software returns for
LiteON based drives:

- European Retail package

The
European retail package includes the LiteOn SOHW-832S, a quick install guide,
mounting screws and a sound cable. While the retail box doesn't mention
it, it supports 1-year warranty for Europe, Middle-East and Africa. Included
software is Nero v6 OEM version and CyberLink PowerDVD v5.0 retail
version. The total cost is expected to be around €135.00.

Our retail package included a DVD+R DL (from Mitsubishi Chemicals) media,
but we suspect that this won't be included with most retail packages that users
buy...

Now let's take a look at the drive itself.

The SOHW-832S looks more or less the same as the previous 812S series
and it has all the appropriate logos indicating the supported formats. The
busy indicator lights up green when the device is active, orange when reading
/ accessing a disc and red when burning. On the front, the user will distinguish
the DVD+R DL logo!

On the rear panel you can see the analogue and digital outputs (SPDIF), the
IDE connector
and the power input. Our drive was manufactured during May 2004 in Taiwan.

Something that should be noted is that the drive is much shorter than the
usual CD/DVD recorder, making its mount an easy task even for PCs with small
cases.
Below you can see a picture of the drive with noticeably smaller dimensions
compared with the Plextor Premium drive.

Removing the screws and opening the drive's cover voids the drive's warranty.
For reference reasons, we post the following pictures. You can click on the mainboard
picture for a higher resolution image:

The LiteOn SOHW-832S further incorporates (located on
the underside of the controller circuit board), a high-speed
DVD dual Optical Disk Controller chipset from MediaTek Inc. consisting of
two CMOS ultra-scale integrated circuits, the MT1816E and MT1818E. The MT1816E
is the front-end analog signal processor and the MT1818E is the servo control
and Endec IC. The pickup system is the Sanyo SF-DB 10SA. Note
that the LiteOn SOHW-812S used the exact same board design (with slight differences
in memory brand used but at the same memory timings)!

- Installation

The drive was installed as secondary master and under WindowsXP recognized
as a "LITE-ON DVDR SOHW-832S". The drive arrived
with firmware vVS01 and till today there hasn't been a newer firmware release.
Below is a picture from Nero Burning Rom, showing the drive's specs.

After all tests had finished, LiteON released a newer firmware, VS03 with the update description "match more media".

Nothing really changed in the drive's properties, except the firmware revision.
Notice that the drive is already one month old, and for
beta testers there is already available a newer revision, VS05, which according
to Lite-On, greatly improves writing quality:

We will compare the drive with its older brother, the SOHW-812S, and the
Plextor PX-708A, since all three drives have exactly the same DVD/CD recording
specs.